Hot Rod Top Speed Challenge

The standing mile. It’s a simple premise, one that’s caught on big lately: From a stop, you accelerate your car to the fastest top speed possible before the 132-foot timing traps at the end of a single mile. It’s a great high, and the East Coast Timing Association has been dealing it since 1994 at Moultrie, Georgia (briefly), and Maxton, North Carolina (from 1995–2011). After losing the Maxton venue, the ECTA kicked off races at the Airpark in Wilmington, Ohio, in 2012 and hasn’t looked back, with participation numbers soaring.

2/18

The ECTA season opener is the site of the HOT ROD Top Speed Challenge each year, and this one went down on the weekend of April 28. Like it did in 2012, the buzzkill of rain loomed, but everything went by the schedule on Saturday, and the 175 pre-registered cars logged 250 passes. Sunday morning brought rain, and pit vehicles hit the runway to make laps on the course and help it dry out. It turns out that a Mazda 3 Sport rental car makes for a mighty fine track dryer. Racing got underway again, and after a lunchtime rain delay, racing was back on until the scheduled close. Because many racers were either satisfied with their Saturday performance or they banked on being rained out all day, the twin lines for the start were shorter on Sunday and many racers got to make three to five passes.

Because the ECTA started a new record book after moving from Maxton to Wilmington, many of the cars that ran were the first in their class to record a run, which meant they were the record holders by default. Of the 100-plus records charted during the weekend, 43 were of the first-run sort, and some records didn’t last the weekend. For complete event results, visit www.ecta-lsr.com.

3/18The Matyjasik brothers were running a Buick NASCAR engine that was good for 208.530 in the A/Fuel Real Street class with Mike Matyjasik behind the wheel, fast enough to take the win in the class and earn a trophy jacket. When his brother David took the wheel later in the C/Fuel Super Street class, the ’71 “Time Bomb” Camaro clocked a 205.010. Note the disco-ball headlight covers the brothers vacuum-molded from PVC recessed lighting diffusers.